This invention relates to conveyor belts conveying food items through an oven. More particularly, it refers to a horizontal conveyor belt having multiple skewers mounted thereon for conveyance through a heating oven.
Conveyor systems for skewered foods moving through a cooking oven are well known as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,071. Various brackets are used to hold the skewer ends in position.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,734,740 and 3,835,761 describe horizontal conveyor systems employed with skewers, the latter patent showing a system for automatically skewering food items.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,635,539; 5,271,316; 5,377,582; and 5,709,142 all describe vertical food conveyors carrying skewered foot items.
The above prior art methods all require substantial cooking time for the skewered food items and consequently use elaborate means of conveying the skewers. Apparatus is needed for simply moving precooked foods quickly through a heating zone for fast food take out sale of requested combinations of skewered food items. A means of identifying different orders going through the heating oven also is needed.
The present invention provides a means for heating precooked food on a skewer while the skewer is moved through an oven in an elongated horizontal path between heating elements located above and below the skewer. The invention provides a means for identifying orders for different combinations of food items for quick fast food turn around to customers. Multiple linked belt drives spaced apart transversely are engaged to multiple transversely mounted and longitudinally spaced apart parallel guide bars. The guide bars are juxtaposed to multiple fixed longitudinally mounted travel tracks or grooves. Skewers containing food items have wheels at each end for moving in the travel grooves. The skewers rotate between the parallel guide bars from a loading station to a discharge station where the heated food is retrieved. Discs on the end of each skewer identify by color code the identity of each order.